Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 23:52:30 +0000 (UTC) From: - - Subject: Stripped with Dad Part 6 This here's a story about me and pa. Takes place back when I was a little younger. Me and pa we lived in North Fork back then but this time we was out on the range for a stretch, couple weeks, and got just about covered in dust from riding all day, and the horses were pretty much parched so we set to finding some kind of creek or pond. Pa says, "After we find some water for these horses, we'll head down into Medicine Bend." Back then, that was just about the biggest town around us, so I was pretty excited about it. I started to asking if we could do this or do that and if I could get a sarsaparilla. I said I was gonna really enjoy seeing everything there was. "I'm gonna strut right down the center of Main Street!" Pa says I better look out and make sure I don't get trampled over. He always says something like that to keep safe. He always takes good care of me, no matter what's going on. So we get to some water, a nice green valley, and Pa takes the horses to drink while I go take a leak behind some rocks. When I walk back, I see a branch with a saddle blanket and a hat and a shirt and pants and a gun belt. It's all of Pa's stuff, so I start looking around for him and hear a big splash behind me. I turn quick and see him pop up in the water, head and shoulders, splashing and treading water. "Come on in and wash off!" he says. I look over at his clothes and everything, and I start to thinking he must be stripped of under there, and when I look back over at him in the water he's swimming in the other direction so I can see through the water and see his rear end come up a little, and with nothing on. Now, me and Pa are real close, not like some I've known who just get hollered at and bossed around. But we ain't never run around without no clothes on before. If it's time to take a bath then you give a man some privacy. He says again for me to get in, and he's splashing all around. So I take off my hat and set it near all of his gear, and I pull my boots off. I'm starting to undo my shirt buttons and looking around to see if somebody is watching, but there's nobody around. Pa is watching, and we've both had our shirts off together before to put in a fence or some other kind of work in the sun like that, but then I start to undoing my trousers. I look over at him but he's swimming around now so I get the last of everything off and hurry down to the water, sort of covering myself with my hand, and I run into the water and down into it. The water feels nice and cool and fresh. And I float in it. The ground underneath gets lower until there's nothing under me keeping me up except the water, rolling all over every inch of my skin. Pa swims up to me and splashes, so we splash a bit and he pushes my head down and I splash him and swim back. He says, "Race ya over to that rock!" and dives ahead into a swim before I know it, and I can see his rear end pop up out of the water and his legs kicking and splashing. I try to swim as fast as I can, and I can see him looking back at me and letting me catch up so we get to the rock right about the same time. Then he starts like he's gonna get out and do a dive into the deep water. I look around to see if anybody is looking, and I'm thinking like I guess I'll see him in the all-together today, and then I start thinking about what if I have to crawl up and if he sees me, and maybe he'll think I'm kind of puny. "Hey! Hey you!" Pa is yelling. My head jolts up to look at him, but he's looking over at the other shore, and then he's splashed into the water and swimming across, and splashing up and standing there yelling. He's standing over by that branch where we left everything, and I see that it's all gone, and some bandits are riding off over the hill on our horses. I start wading across quick with the water up to my chest. I look up at Pa, and he's just standing there naked, and I can see everything on the back of him and I can see through his legs to what's hanging on the front of him, just kind of a shadow under there. Then he ducks down and hurries over behind some bushes, and a stagecoach barrels down the road loud and fast and not too far off. Pa's hiding so's nobody could see him. I'm looking up to see what all they run off with, and it looks like everything, the horses and all our clothes and money and Pa's special gun. "They took everything!," Pa says. He's back in the water behind me. "I can't believe it!" He's mad as Hell, and I guess maybe a little embarrassed too. I sure was. Then he says, "What was that you said about strutting down Main Street? You're gonna have all eyes on you." I didn't know what to do or say, and neither did he. Can you imagine being in a situation like that? And him a grown man. It'd be pretty silly for someone my age to be skinny-dipping and end up with nothing to cover up with, have to run home in the shadows or steal somebody's wash off the line, but for him it could be downright criminal, and we're miles away from anything. I says, "We could wait until it gets dark?" "No, we've got to go after them right away if there's any chance of getting anything back." The water doesn't really feel cool and relaxing anymore. Now it's like we're stuck in it and can't go nowhere. But I look down through the water between us. Now we're standing where it's clear and deep, no mud or ripples in the water, and I can see everything on both our bodies, only all out of focus like it is in the water how you can't tell where a fish is really or how deep the bottom gets to. Pa says, "You a little bashful like this?" I guess he could see me staring and thinking. I just kind of nod yes. He says I ought not to be and just cause we don't go around like that all the time don't mean we got to go all red in the face. "After all, we got all the same, don't we?" He stands up straight, and he's much taller than me, and he steps over closer to the edge up on a rock. He's still in the water up to his waist but I can see everything more clearly now, and it all looks like me but just on him and all bigger. "No shame in looking. We're gonna have to get out and figure something, sooner or later." I step up near him, and the water gets lower and lower on me, slow, until it's just up to my knees, and I'm dripping water off of everything. I look down at myself and then up at him looking. "Everything looks as it should. You're growing up to be a fine young man." Then he stands up, and I can really see it all. He stops and just stands there in front of me. I'm just staring. He's so tall and strong and everything is so much bigger than me. I look back at myself. But then I feel his hand reach out and land on my shoulder. He says he wouldn't mind just stretching out in the sun like this for a few hours with me, but we had got to get going, somehow. He pats my shoulder and gives my stomach a little nudge with his hand, and we start climbing out of the water and onto the grass. Pa steps up and looks around again. He pulls up a saddle blanket that fell down and got left behind, old and yellow with a big red stripe. He says "nothing but this, no money, no horses, no boots." Then I notice something rolling like a wheel in the wind, and I run over to it. It's my hat. I pick it up and go to put it on my head but then stop and use it to cover myself in the front and look over to the road, and when I look back at Pa he's got the blanket wrapped around his waist, barely staying closed as he holds it tight on the side, barely covering down a bit and with a bulge in the front where it's tight over himself. He says we better get going and follow over the hill instead of taking the road. We start walking, tread lightly over the dirt and rocks, then back onto the soft grass on the other side, to march up the hill in the sun. At first, I'm covering myself in the front and naked in the back, but then the sun gets in my eyes and nobody's around so I put my hat on my head and pull it down in the front to shade my eyes. After a while walking like that, pretty much just walking across the meadows and wildflowers with no clothes, Pa says to me that I look like a pretty tough customer like that, says I could make a name for myself, running around robbing banks. I say, "But I wouldn't have any pockets to keep all the money in!" He laughs a little. "You know, I been trying to hold this little blanket up for a couple hours now. Maybe I shouldn't bother with it?" I look at him as we're walking. The grass is up to our knees, crunching and waving back and forth as we hike through it. I says "Up to you" and I look around, grab a tall piece of grass and rip it in my hands, look back over at him. He lets go of the knot he got in it at his waist, and it falls off of him around his bare body so's he's just holding it in front, covering him. I look at how it waves in front of him with each step, an inch or two in front, sometimes not really hiding anything under. After a bit, he just holds it in one hand like the handle of a bucket, and his whole body is uncovered all the way. I'm looking over, staring. I look up at him, and he's looking right at me. I look down and then up at him. Then this goofy smile comes on my face and then he grins too. I start like I'm gonna say how silly we must look walking around like that and how I'm glad nobody can see us, but Pa stops and steps back a few steps and is waving me back. I look back, and he's wrapping that old blanket around his waist again as best he can. He points over the hill, and I can see a few wagons. "Best take your hat off to be polite," he says, and he grabs my hat off my head and sort of sticks it on me down lower so's I hold it there. I say that we can't go down there and let them see us like this, but he says it's better luck than it seems. We can hear them too, well one of them, and it's a preacher giving a sermon. Pa says he can tell that it's a bunch of Quakers, from how they're dressed, and that Quakers are just about the friendliest folks we could find. I can hear the sermon about Adam in a garden. Then Pa just starts walking down toward them, and I just can't believe it. He says, "Friends! We are so thankful to encounter thee!" He's waving for me to follow behind, even with nothing on behind and just my hat trying is best to keep me modest in front. Pa is telling them that we were robbed, which is true, but he's saying "Could thee help us? We would greatly appreciate any spare clothes from thou." The preacher in charge of the whole gang says for us to follow him. He takes us over to a wagon, and I go the long way around so nobody's behind me except this one older feller dressed like the preacher who got a surprise. We're inside the wagon, and the preacher holds out something to Pa, like a folded shirt, and then holds it up. He says it's for wearing to be baptized in. It's like a long nightshirt. And he just stands there waiting, so Pa drops his covering off to the floor and takes it with a smile and a nod. He pulls it over his head while we both watch him dress, and when he pulls it down it isn't very long on his legs, and it's got that same bulge in the front that the blanket had. The preacher says, "Perhaps this one shall be a better fit on thee," and he hands me one of the same. I'm a little shy and quick putting mine on, and it's a lot looser on me. It covers more, but it's thin as a handkerchief so's you could practically see right through. Pa steps over by me, and his is the same. I can see through almost. That's all that they can offer, and we say thanks. He tells us that they're about to do a baptism, and I'm wondering what we'll do, but the preacher says that he knows we ain't really Quakers. Seems Pa said thee instead of thou or something. But he says we're welcome to watch. So we followed down to a river where three or four men dressed same as us were getting baptized, and we watched and got it explained like it's washing away anything bad on the insides same as you wash away dirt on the outsides. "Pa? Why don't we?" I say, and we ask and wade out into the cool flowing water and get dunked by the preacher. They were a little different from us, but it weren't like we was joining up with them permanently. The water felt good, and the whole thing made me think. Then we're soaked wet, and what we're wearing gets even more see-through and clinging to our bodies. I could see the whole shape of Pa's muscles and well everything, and I looked down and was the same. But luckily it was only men in the group for this, and the sun started drying us off. Before long, a couple wagons came up to bring lunch out, and they even fed us a feast, like a picnic. Preacher says to follow him, and he's got a set of clothes for each of us, borrowed from the new wagon. We set off in our new clothes looking like Quakers, old-fashioned clothes with a little ribbon tie and breeches and high socks. My outfit was loose and Pa's was tight, but we was covered up. And we had into Medicine Bend and all the streets and buildings and people. We see our horses tied up outside a saloon so we walk in, and I guess they don't get many Quakers. We got funny looks. Barkeep asks, "What can I get for thee, brother? A whiskey?" And Pa is still pretending. With a big smile he says buttermilk. That got a few laughs. We spent a while in there, smiling. Before long, I spotted Pa's gun. I'd know it anywhere, same as I'd know my boots and clothes and Pa's hat, all on somebody else. He couldn't have been much older'n me and short and muscled and mean-looking and drunk. Pa tells me to keep calm and do like he does. He puts on this big smile and bumps into the guy. "Oh my heavens, I beg of thine forgiveness." The guy yells about the spilled drink, and Pa goes up trying to clean him off and then quick as lightning pulls the gun out of the holster and points it at the guy's chin. Everybody backs away, and the place goes quiet. "This is my gun!" Pa says. He tells everybody how we're getting back everything stolen from us. The guy says, "So you're taking me in for the reward?" And he starts yelling how he's wanted in this city and that city, trying to act tough. He leans back against the bar and sips his drink and tips his hat. "That hat ain't yours. Take it off," Pa says, and he fires a shot at the guy's feet. The guy jumps and tosses Pa's hat on a table. "Those boots ain't yours. Take 'em off." He kicks out of them, and I grab them. "Those clothes ain't yours either." With everybody watching, the guy takes off the shirt and belt and trousers until he's just wearing my faded red union suit, and everybody starts laughing. "Where's my money?" Pa shouts. I dig through the clothes and find Pa's billfold. Barely any in it. "You've been here wearing my son's clothes and drinking up all my money, while we walked for miles, barefoot and buck naked!" Pa tells me to take some money out and pay for the buttermilk. We start leading him outside and down the street, with everybody laughing and pointing. Pa makes arrangements to sell the horses for passage on a stagecoach, and says that we'll be back in a couple days to buy 'em back. Then we find the sheriff and tell him that we're taking the guy in and expect a reward when we show up. The sheriff sends a telegraph ahead. So we're sitting in the stagecoach, with this guy across from us, just us three, and he's still in his underwear, in my underwear, and still a little drunk. Pa asks what about his clothes. "Too big for me so I sold 'em." Pa asks me, "Those yours he's got on?" about the underclothes, and I say yes. "You best give my son back everything you stole." So the guy starts unbuttoning, all the way down, taking out his arms, and I see how his chest and stomach look like Pa. Then he pulls 'em off all the way and tosses 'em over to me and the pile of clothes on my arm. The stage is going fast over bumpy road, and it's swaying and shaking, and this guy is totally naked, just staring us down. I look over at Pa. He don't look over. I look back at the guy's naked body. He looks at me. Pa says to me that I could change back into my own clothes again now that I got them back. I look at him. He looks down at me, and he picks up the underwear and hands it to me. I take off the borrowed shoes and my hat. I undo the little tie and open up the shirt and slide it off so's I'm bare from the waist up. Nobody's saying nothing, looking but then looking away. I undo the belt and slide everything off so I'm full naked. Pa says, "You think he was embarrassed when you left him like this?" "He's got nothing to be ashamed of. Just look at him." And Pa looks over at me, with nothing on, waiting to get dressed. I see Pa look down lower on me, and then I look down and see that I'm sticking straight out long and hard. My face turns red and probably all the rest of me, and I grab my hat again to cover it. I look over at the guy, and he's just the same as me, only not covering it at all, holding it, and slowly sliding his hand up and down. Nobody says nothing for a bit. We're just rocking as the stage speeds along. Then the guy says, "Fine boy you got there, sir" and turns to me, "But I bet old Pa has us both beat, don't he? Big tall feller like that?" I don't look over at Pa. I don't say anything at all. I'm not sure if I should just get dressed. Hat's still in my lap. Pa says, "That what you think?" I don't know if he's asking me or him, but the guy nods yes. "I got nothing left on me to bet, but I sure think so. Don't you, junior?" He's looking at me. "I don't know. I reckon probably." I think about how I saw him before but not hard, not excited like I was. Pa looks over at me and gives me a smile. He tells me to put my hat on. I take my hat off my lap and put it on my head so's it's all I'm wearing. Nothing outside of the stage but empty fields going by and dust kicking up. I take a hold of myself and squeeze. Pa's never seen me like that. Nobody had. I'm pointing up, and I look down. Pa undoes his belt but not his gun belt. He leaves that on the whole time, even while he opens his trousers at the waist and slides them down below his knees. The shirt he has on is hanging low over everything, but he starts to unbutton it all the way down until I see something poking out. "Wow, Pa." The guy says, "Wow is right. That's a mighty big pistol." He's leaning back and bouncing his hand, looking at us both, back and forth. Pa isn't touching himself though. So I let go of mine. Then it gets quiet. And the guy says, "Show him how." Pa leans back and lets his hand float all over his skin, and he looks over at me, and he grabs himself and looks down at it. I watch. Then I want to feel my hand on myself, feel it tight and stroking down to the edge and then pulling it back. I'm rocking back and forth and bouncing. It kind of makes me even more excited. I never did anything like that before then, with somebody looking. My knee bumps against Pa's and I say sorry, but he pats my knee, and it feels good. Then the guy starts moaning, and he just can't contain himself. Me and Pa just stare at him, the both of us, but the guy looks like he likes us staring and seeing. Pa takes out a handkerchief and tosses it to the guy to clean himself up. Then the guy just watches as me and Pa do the same, going faster and faster, looking at each other but my eyes started to clench tight, and my leg was rubbing against his. I made my eyes open when it was time, and I watched Pa watching me, and when it started that's when he gritted his teeth and started rubbing his hand all over himself and moaning, and I'm watching him. We just set there for a while getting bumped left and right. Finally, Pa gave a big sigh and a smile and helped me clean up, patting me on the back, and I got dressed back into my own clothes finally. We turned him in to jail and got the reward money, and got ourselves back home again. Me and Pa started going skinnydipping a lot more after that, but we would always hide our clothes.